That's why I think we should have lotteries for political service. Once you hit voting age and legally able to vote, you are automatically entered into the service lottery and you serve one term and one term only in that office.

Once you do one mandatory service period, one can choose to volunteer to be placed back into the lottery pool for another office other than the one you served in.

This will take a bit of the money out of politics, end career politicians and I really think it would lead to a much fair

Yeah. And it'll also end these political dynasties. We are developing a political aristocracy in this country and it's deplorable.

I don't care what their platform is, I will not vote for a Bush, Kennedy, Clinton, or anyone else that has family in higher offices. It's one thing if it's a Congressional, mayoral or city council candidate, but President or Senator? NFW.

Nah nothing that profound. Just a statement of basic logic. Too many people trot out the pseudo-logic statement "can't prove a negative" when that is simply a misunderstanding of the real fallacy. Mathematics, for example, contains tons of negative proofs.

Whats the issue here? While indeed "allies", Germany is still an international rival to the USA and thus the NSA targeting the German political leadership is perfectly acceptable as that is, surprisingly enough, their job - espionage and intelligence gathering! Gathering information which gives the USA an advantage in talks or negotiations (trade agreements et al) is what is supposed to be going on.

What the Germans should be asking close questions about is why their counter-espionage agencies are not prot

Even accepting your idea that there should be no limits on espionage, one big problem here is that the espionage was discovered. If you are going to spy on me, I'd better not find out about it. That's just the way the game is played. If it were OK to do, they wouldn't call it "spying," they would call it "looking."

Stop with the "it's their job!" nonsense. Nobody is buying it. Our president was just saying a few months before the NSA revelations that China was hacking into our government systems and considered it a breach of treaty and an illegal act of aggression. The only difference here is that the "bad guys" are on our side and you are buying into their propaganda.

"Everybody else is doing it" also is not an excuse. It didn't work when you were a child and sure as fuck doesn't work when you're a adult. Do not make

What the Germans should be asking close questions about is why their counter-espionage agencies are not protecting them - where is the failure?

It's all faux outrage for political expediency. I won't consider Snowden's a success until I see a very dramatic turnover in elected offices. In fact, it looks more like an attempt to manipulate the stock markets than anything else. The politicians and their political parties are in no danger of losing anything.

Absolutely. German politicos don't really care about this, because the existence of this particular type of spying is something they've always understood. For decades, all diplomats everywhere, if wise, have made the presumption that their unsecured lines are under surveillance by any number of different nations. The only reason they're pretending to care is because their naïve constituents apparently didn't know. They can't simply let the rabble go unanswered.

The problem is not that people are angry, its that they want legal recourse to be had - they want NSA chiefs and ex-chiefs et al to be prosecuted, which is pure fantasy land demands imho, very much like the recent "charging" of Chinese military personnel with hacking US institutions.

I have no issue with people being angry, or there being very real political ramifications between "allies", but for privacy groups to demand prosecutions just shows how far out of touch with reality they actually are.

No, it's not 'their job.' Their actual mission statement is much more nuanced than that, the job descriptions of those within the agency are much more complicated, and the reality is that even job descriptions tend to miss a huge share of what someone actually does. So, when you say it is 'their job', you are saying that you don't believe that these people with lots of power should be properly checked. The notion of 'perfectly acceptable' and 'their job' is the heart of the problem. It's also assuming 't

We have treaties left over from WW2 that interestingly were put in place. There is a Professor at Freiburg University who says what the NSA is doing in Germany is basically legal. He even claims that the German secret service can legally assist the NSA.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, leaders realized such a prosecution would open a can of worms that could lead to very embarrassing disclosures about German activities and complicity in the spying. No politician wants to be caught in that mess, and the spymasters are quite happy to keep working together while the politicians publicly denounce the spying for their own political ends. I would not be surprised if sone of the professionals are going "We have too get some of that stuff for ourselves" and "Holy crap. They can do that?"

I have always found it strange how you Anglo Saxons see so much sanctity in feces. To us Germans it is a revolting substance but for you it is the focus of much religious reverence.

That's OK, we've never understood why your toilets have shelves so you can inspect your own feces.

So, whose the one obsessed with poo?

Well, we may examine the turd before despatching it onwards on its journey to the sewage treatment facility, but we have not yet accorded fecal matter the status of a venerated holy relic. Your religious veneration trumps our slightly unusual scientific curiosity.

I have always found it strange how you Anglo Saxons see so much sanctity in feces. To us Germans it is a revolting substance but for you it is the focus of much religious reverence.

Well, it started out out as bing referred to as "wholly crap" as in "completely crap" but given the deep Anglo Saxon religious roots it got misinterpreted as "Holy crap" and that is what stuck. Or something like that...

"follow the money" has gotten trite, but I have to wonder if the German federal government's decision not to pursue this is in any way tied to the large amount of German gold we are holding for them. As I recall, they asked for it back a couple years ago and the US declined to ship it.

Yes the cash flow post WW2 is the key.
West Germany was rebuilt on French, UK and US terms and ideals. Staff where vetted and kept their old ww2 jobs or where in the UK, France, US under Operation Paperclip like plans.
Operation Paperclip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Reinhard Gehlen and start of West German/CIA work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Operation Gladio US/EU long term staff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
So long term the people selecting the next generation of West German telco/cry

Considering how some European countries are so protective of their language, I bet they refused to accept the evidence at hand, because it was in English instead of German.

Unlikely. Although for example SEPA regulation (euro-wide banking rules) require some terms to be provided to consumers in their own native language, the German version of the regulation is full of using English terms whenever some specific thing of the English main text is referred to. For the consumer, this leads to strangely sounding, practically non-understandable documents.

As another example, the word "marmalade" in English, referring to smashed/sugared fruits of only certain types has now influenced t

Re I bet they refused to accept the evidence at hand?
What can any one German do? If they make a fuss, protest your on a domestic security agency watch list as a far right or left sympathiser, fellow traveler.
No more security work, risk that promotion, your boss gets a hint about your new found political views...
As in West, East or now in Germany - you protest, you risk a lot long term.
Asking for telco/privacy law reform in Germany is not fun outside a list of tame political parties, front organization

We know the NSA eavesdropped on Merkel, it's been admitted, essentially. The more interesting thing to ponder is, was it just one instance of listening to a single call, or has the NSA been listening in on pretty much ALL her calls? I think we know the answer to that. And, is Merkel the only world leader, person of importance, etc., being monitored? I think we know the answer to that, too. Pretty much EVERY world leader, and person of importance is being monitored as long as they are able to, and there

Fortunately, "well, we know..." is generally not accepted as a legal argument in most modern, industrialized nations.

You might consider saying "I think we all can agree...". I don't know how extensive NSA monitoring of foreign nationals is. I don't even know that such monitoring takes place. I personally am certain that it does, and I'm fairly certain that it's very extensive. I'd be quite engraged if I knew - it would tell me that our NSA is doing a lousy job if I knew the extent of their activities.

People who are pissed off at Edward Snowden are the same people who would applaud the US government if they claimed they needed to curtail free speec/freedom of the press until this whole "terrorist" thing has passed. If only the times were safer to afford such liberties.

Another fun question for Germany is who clears the crypto tech, the paper trail of its conception, design, development, testing, build.... the fully trusted life cycle of any secure German only telco product.
How generations of cleared German gov contracted academics, the German military, German security services all allowed this to happen is something for elected German leaders to ponder.
Can diverse, independent, fully vetted groups of staff, engineers, consultants really just rubber stamp something of th

The general attorney is part of the ministry of justice... Merkel and other leading politicians have made it clear they do not see any reason to prosecute the U.S. for the privacy invasion the NSA has committed... now, the general attorney decides there's not enough evidence. Go figure.

All lying bastards... too bad the general public does not understand (or care) what most politicians are doing...

I'll let someone else make the appropriate joke about a grammar nazi comment about real Nazis. So to feel like I contributed something serious to the discussion, I'll simply add that, whatever they understood about SIGINT, the Nazis were pwned [wikipedia.org] by the English-speaking world too.

Aren't you Mr. High and Mighty? Way to take one douche bags comments, assume he's an American (probably is), and then extrapolate that he represents all 310+ million Americans. I wouldn't say you're clear of the asshole label yourself.

US prosecutes Chinese Generals and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Commanders on the slimmest, "guilt by implication and association" pretexts.

No, the USA "brings charges against" these guys. "Prosecution" requires a trial before a Judge and Jury. Which in turns requires a defendant who is PRESENT for the trial. We have no legal provision for Trial in Absentia in the USA (hence Kerry saying Snowden should "come back to the US to stand trial").

No, the USA "brings charges against" these guys. "Prosecution" requires a trial before a Judge and Jury. Which in turns requires a defendant who is PRESENT for the trial. We have no legal provision for Trial in Absentia in the USA (hence Kerry saying Snowden should "come back to the US to stand trial").

Barring the occasional executive order to dispense with all that inconvenient legal stuff... for example [theatlantic.com]

No, the USA "brings charges against" these guys. "Prosecution" requires a trial before a Judge and Jury. Which in turns requires a defendant who is PRESENT for the trial. We have no legal provision for Trial in Absentia in the USA (hence Kerry saying Snowden should "come back to the US to stand trial").

No, the USA simply sends drones to kill unwanted persons without any of that.

For what? For the spying that W and the neo-cons did back in the mid 00's?
From neo-nazis to neo-cons, you still have the same warped ideas and logic.
How soone before fucks like you scream that jews and/or blacks screwed over America? Oh wait. You have been here doing it all along.